Sect and House in Syria: History,Architecture, and Bayt Amongst the Druze in Jaramana

This paper explores the connections between the architecture and materiality of houses and the social idiom of bayt (house, family). The ethnographic exploration is located in the Druze village of Jaramana, on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus. It traces the histories, genealogies, and politics of two families, bayt Abud-Haddad and bayt Ouward, through their houses. By exploring the two families and the architecture of their houses, this paper provides a detailed ethnographic account of historical change in modern Syria, internal diversity, and stratification within the intimate social fabric of the Druze neighbourhood at a time of war, and contributes a relational approach to the anthropological understanding of houses.     

Estonian family farms in transition: a study of intangible assets and gender issues in generational succession

This paper, based on interviews, highlights intangible assets in the intergenerational transfer of farms in two Estonian municipalities from a long-term and gender perspective. The study stretches from the interwar period in the twentieth century up to the present. It has been shown that emotional bonds to the land are generally strong in Estonia. This paper aims to highlight how such bonds and feelings may influence decisions on generational succession. The results of the study indicate that family farming and land transfer have had a significant and persistent role in Estonian society, even during the Soviet period under its collectivised system of agriculture. Transfers of intangible assets were important during Soviet rule, for example, the transfer of knowledge about the pre-Soviet property and the value and importance of the farmhouse. Today, family farming is gradually declining in importance, but older traditions of farm and farmhouse transfer can still be found, such as early decisions on who is to be the successor. This is evident among active farmers but also among former farmers with strong emotional bonds to the land. Traditional gender roles tend towards men’s knowledge still generally being more highly valued in the decision about who is to be the successor to the family land.     

Understanding the rates of expansion of the farming system in Europe

If the overall expansion of the farming system was determined by the Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT), i.e. by demographic pressure, what determined the rate of expansion? What is the link between the rate of expansion, the farming system and demographic density? In a first approach, the issue of the different rates of expansion of the farming system on the map is addressed in terms of 21 geo-ecological, climatic and cultural factors and forager populations, via an ordinary least square regression technique (OLS). In a second approach, the variability of the rate of expansion is analyzed in terms of specific patterns identified for the ceramic culture areas, via a cluster analysis. The expansion rate is negatively correlated with the intensification of the agricultural system, as well as with demographic density. Expansion is slow in ecosystems with an intensive farming system with relatively high demographic density, and vice-versa.     

Family and familiars. The concentric household in late medieval penitentiary petitions

Few studies to date have examined the relational aspects of life within a non-nuclear medieval household. This article aims to show that the affective bonds that were prescribed for members of the nuclear family in the late middle ages were also prescribed for members of the larger household, though to a lesser degree. ‘Familiars’ were expected to develop bonds of loyalty that cut across distinctions of social estate. A series of petitions to the papal penitentiary from German-speaking areas during the fifteenth century shows that both elite and non-elite individuals exhibited such affective bonds of support in violent situations as well as in a wide variety of other circumstances. This indicates that the household formed a major building block of medieval society in relational as well as in logistical terms.     

贵州麻江高枧夏家史考

“树由根而发,水由源而流”,当紫禁城里传出贵州麻哈州人夏同袜高中状元之时,祝贺之余要思考的便是原因,固然夏状元本人是成就这一巅峰时刻的本因,然他身后的那个家族对他的影响亦不容忽视。历史沧桑变幻,关于夏状元以及他的那个家族已经变得愈加模糊,便是他的后世子孙对他亦是不甚清楚。纵有热心人士努力,但不成系统,本文试图为夏家600余年的历史理出一个脉络,希望抛砖引玉,以此为起点展开对夏状元及其家族的研究,作为600百年前来到贵州的汉族,这个家族的成长发展具有一定的典型意义,具有较高的研究价值。     

黄土高原旱作区新农村建设关键技术分析

黄土高原旱作区是关系国家生态安全、经济发展、"三农"问题的重要区域。围绕黄土高原旱作区新农村建设已积累了广泛的科研成果,但由于缺乏系统性的整合与示范推广,导致收效有限。针对此问题,文章提出了黄土高原旱作区新农村建设的3类关键技术体系:以优化水资源配置为核心的现代集水农业与农业主导产业技术体系,以类型化为核心的新农村绿色生态社区规划建设技术体系,以及以循环农业模式为核心的农村环境综合治理与可再生能源利用技术体系,并逐一进行了分析。     

家族内人口与生活:以浦江义门郑氏为例

《(浦江)义门郑氏宗谱》拥有一个家族中以男性人口为主的详细资料,具有重要的研究价值,对于了解该家族的人口数量、人口增减的速度、职业、化状况、婚姻状况、寿命等等,都具有重要的研究价值。藉此数据为蓝本,加以比排分析,为后人了解一个家族的婚姻状况、平均寿命、化、职业等都可以展开新的视野。     

Moral economies of food and geographies of responsibility

This paper uses the concept of 'moral economy' to challenge the conventional view that defines morality and the market as oppositional terms. Drawing on evidence from life history interviews with key actors in the British food industry, the paper outlines how moral and ethical questions are articulated through notions of space and time. Using case study material from the chicken and sugar industries, the paper examines the way that ethical and moral issues are expressed through the dimensions of time (via notions of remembering and forgetting) and space (via notions of connecting and disconnecting) and via notions of visibility and invisibility. The paper concludes by examining how our understanding of the moral economies of food can be advanced through the adoption of a relational view of geographical scale and temporal connection, contrasting the attribution of individual blame with a politics of collective responsibility.     

农村劳动力外出就业对个人、家庭及农村社会的影响探析

农村劳动力外出就业给农民个人、家庭和农村社区带来了一系列显性的和隐性的影响,这些影响对农民群体和整个社会都是不容忽视的。     

发达国家的农业现代化对我国农业发展的启示

本文系统地分析了发达国家农业现代化的特点,从发达国家农业现代化与我国农业生产现状的结合点上,探讨了今后我国农业发展的途径与策略。